1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of operating a hearing aid. More specifically the invention relates to a method of operating a hearing aid wherein speech intelligibility and listening comfort are optimized. Further the present invention relates to a hearing aid. The invention, in particular, relates to a hearing aid adapted to provide improved speech intelligibility and listening comfort.
A modern hearing aid comprises one or more microphones, a signal processor and a loudspeaker.
Prior to use, the hearing aid must be fitted to the individual user. The fitting procedure basically comprises adapting a transfer function dependent on level and frequency to best compensate the user's hearing loss according to the particular circumstances such as the user's hearing impairment and the specific hearing aid selected. The selected settings of the parameters governing the transfer function are stored in the hearing aid. The settings can later be changed through a repetition of the fitting procedure, e.g. to account for a change in impairment. In case of multi-program hearing aids, the adaptation procedure may be carried out once for each program, selecting settings dedicated to take specific sound environments into account.
2. The Prior Art
According to the state of the art, hearing aids process sound in a number of frequency bands with facilities for specifying gain levels according to some predefined input/gain-curves in the respective bands.
The level-dependent transfer function is adapted for compressing the signal in order to control the dynamic range of the output of the hearing aid. The compression can be regarded as an automatic adjustment of the gain levels for the purpose of improving the listening comfort of the user of the hearing aid, and the compression may therefore be denoted Automatic Gain Control (AGC). The AGC also provides the gain values required for alleviating the hearing loss of the person using the hearing aid. Compression may be implemented in the way described in the international application WO-A1-9934642.
Advanced hearing aids may further comprise anti-feedback routines for continuously measuring input levels and output levels in respective frequency bands for the purpose of continuously controlling acoustic feedback instability through providing cancellation signals and through lowering of the gain settings in the respective bands when necessary.
However, in all these “predefined” gain adjustment methods, the gain levels are modified according to functions that have been predefined during the programming and fitting of the hearing aid to reflect requirements for generalized situations.
Recently it has been suggested to use models for the prediction of the intelligibility of speech after a transmission though a linear system. The most well-known of these models is the “articulation index”, AI, the speech intelligibility index, SII, and the “speech transmission index”, STI, but other indices exist.
Determinations of speech intelligibility have been used to assess the quality of speech signals in telephone lines, see e.g. H. Fletcher and R. H. Galt “The perception of speech and its relation to telephony,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 22, 89-151 (1950).
The ANSI S3.5-1969 standard (revised 1997) provides methods for the calculation of the speech intelligibility index, SII. The SII makes it possible to predict the intelligible amount of the transmitted speech information, and thus, the speech intelligibility in a linear transmission system. The SII is a function of the system's transfer function and of the acoustic input, i.e. indirectly of the speech spectrum at the output of the system. Furthermore, it is possible to take both the effects of a masking noise and the effects of a hearing aid user's hearing loss into account in the SII.
The SII is always a number between 0 (speech is not intelligible at all) and 1 (speech is fully intelligible). The SII is, in fact, an objective measure of the system's ability to convey speech intelligibly, indicating the probability of the listener being able to understand what is being said.
An increase of gain in the hearing aid will always lead to an increase in the loudness of the amplified sound, which may in some cases lead to an unpleasantly high sound level, thus creating loudness discomfort for the hearing aid user.
The loudness at the output of the hearing aid may be calculated according to a loudness model, e.g. by the method described in an article by B. C. J. Moore and B. R. Glasberg “A revision of Zwicker's loudness model”, Acta Acustica Vol. 82 (1996) 335-345, which proposes a model for calculation of loudness in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects. The model is designed for steady state sounds, but an extension of the model allows calculations of loudness of shorter transient-like sounds too. Reference is made to ISO standard 226 (ISO 1987) concerning equal loudness contours.
EP-B1-1522206 discloses a hearing aid and a method of operating a hearing aid wherein speech intelligibility is improved based on frequency band gain adjustments based on real-time determinations of speech intelligibility and loudness, and which is suitable for implementation in a processor in a hearing aid.
This type of hearing aid and operation method requires the capability of increasing or decreasing the gain independently in the different bands depending on the current sound situation. For bands with high noise levels, e.g., it may be advantageous to decrease the gain, while an increase of gain can be advantageous in bands with low noise levels, in order to enhance the SII. However, such a simple strategy will not always be an optimal solution, as the SII also takes inter-band interactions, such as mutual masking, into account. A precise calculation of the SII is therefore necessary.
While such a system is generally advantageous it has been found that some users prefer the listening comfort to be improved beyond what is readily available in the prior art based on a loudness model.
Further it has been found to be advantageous that the means for improving the listening comfort can be adapted to suit the individual preferences of the hearing aid user.
As it is not feasible to compute a general relationship between the SII and a given change in amplification gain analytically, some kind of numerical optimization routine is needed to determine this relationship in order to determine the particular amplification gain that gives the largest SII value. However, deriving an optimization routine that provides optimized speech intelligibility in real time using the limited processing resources in a hearing aid is in no way straightforward.
It is therefore a feature of the invention to provide a method of operating a hearing aid wherein improved listening comfort is provided together with real-time optimized speech intelligibility in varying sound environments.
It is another feature of the invention to provide a method of operating a hearing aid wherein improved real-time optimized speech intelligibility is provided using the limited processing resources in a hearing aid.
It is a further feature of the invention to provide a hearing aid comprising means for enhancing listening comfort and means for optimizing speech intelligibility in real-time.